Raccoon mysteriously entered crawlspace

Help me crack this case: Late last night I heard a scratching sound outside my bedroom wall, so when I went around to inspect it, I looked down at the foundation covering and saw a raccoon there! He was aggressively trying to force his way through a vent. Now, this is the same vent that a couple of months ago I had noticed that something had partially torn away. I put in some new hardware cloth that I nailed to the house and put the old one back in place as best I could.

Well, after I let the raccoon out through the crawlspace entry and scared him off, I noticed that the old vent covering was torn away again and the new one was bowed out with large tufts of fur caught in it. He was clearly very desperate to get out...but I have no idea how he got in.

Is it possible that it pulled back the old vent cover and used his claws to pull back on the one that I replaced just enough to give enough space? It was bowed quite a bit, but we're only talking a couple of inches. All other vent foundation coverings are completely sealed. The only other thing I can think of is that about four years ago, we have a family of raccoons hanging out under where our roof lines intersect and there's a tiny alcove there. Could this one have gotten into that alcove, gotten into the attic, traveled to the other part of my house and made it's way down an opening in a wall and into the crawlspace?